QuestionI'm a vegetarian and I'm worried that I'm not getting enough protein. I bought an amino acid supplement, but it doesn't have anywhere near the recommended daily amounts for each amino acid. Are there any supplements that have close to the necessary daily intake?
Thank you
AnswerHi Meg,
In a holistic diet supplements are never the way forward. It is incredibly hard, for any diet, to find an amino-acid supplement that does what it says on the tin/packet/bottle! The whole protein-processing system is extremely intricate and in my opinion it takes more than a chemistry class to understand it.
A vegetarian diet can be completely satisfying in protein intake and amino acids. Try to forget the numbers and take a look at your raw ingredients: are they varied, fresh and from different food groups?
In alternative, natural diets, your general health, fitness, and immunity depend on your life-force body which is a wise entity in its own right. Find ways to tune into it. The type of protein that supports life-force is found in pulses, nuts, dairy, eggs of course,but also cereals, and vegetables; but that is not all there is to know. We waste a lot of valuable nutrients by the way in which we eat them: by not chewing or savouring properly, eating at wrong times, mixing up wrong combinations or using products which are poor in nutrients (poorly farmed or overly processed). These things ought to be taken into consideration for they make for a holistic, integrated picture which supports physical health.
If you can focus on preparing colourful, fresh, joyous vegetarian meals which respond to a (well-informed/trained up) healthy appetite you are unlikely to have shortages in your diet, given the abundance of choices out there (in our priviliged countries at least). For short, sharp boosts of protein delve into the raw food or superfood industry and add a scoop of rice or pea protein, hemp powder or baobab to your muesli and yoghurt for breakfast or lunch-time smoothie. It's all extra, and only very active athletes or growing teens really need much of this.
If it FEELS like you are deficient in protein, you may need to redesign your diet and learn more about what constitutes a balanced, satisfying, healthy vegetarian diet; or you might have to reconsider being a full-blown vegetarian (it is why some of us are fishytarian). Not every body is necessarily happy on vegetable food alone. This may be genetically determined to some extent, and a whole array of other considerations is opened if you want to challenge this natural nutritional predisposition.
I wish you much luck in your further research on vegetarianism.
Take care!
Evelyn
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